(I am writing this after my kids have gone to sleep during an extended 3 week “Easter holiday”.)

When people hear how much I travel, they often get a troubled look on their faces. “It sounds like an amazing life, but I pity your wife and your children.”

And yes, it is true, I do travel a lot. I was in 32 different countries last year. I spend more time in the air than a commercial airline pilot, and not long ago, I used three separate around-the-world-tickets in 2 months. And so it goes on.

But I also spend a lot of time at home with my kids.

I actually spent MORE time with my kids than someone who works 9-5, has 4 weeks of vacation and NEVER travels for work!

The difference being that the person who works 9-5 gets to see his or her young children a few hours before they go to sleep, whilst many of my hours with my kids are “quality hours” during the middle of the day when the kids – and their dad – are not tired.

If you are interested in the mathematics of the calculation it looks like this:

NORMAL WORKER:

Working 8 hours Mon-Fri + 1 hour commuting to work + 1 hour of lunch away from home + 8 hours of sleep = 6 hours of “free time” that can be spent with kids (or train for a marathon or whatever).

That makes 200 hours of more free time for the “normal worker” but then I have not counted all the days during my “working period” when I have days where I have some hours with my kids. It is EASILY 40 days per year (in reality much more than that). So 40 days * 6 hours with kids = 320 hours.

Conclusion: It is totally possible to be a global professional speaker AND have MORE quality time with your child than if you work “9 to 5” and never travel.

So how is it possible to squeeze in 80 different speeches in 32 different countries on 5 continents in only 7 months of actively working in one year? Well, that I will have to tell you in another post soon. 😉

So “travel the world” or “be with your kids”? Well, you can have it all. That is the life of a global professional speaker.

Being a global keynote speaker might arguably be the best job in the world.

Think about it.

You get (highly) paid to travel the world to live in some of the best hotels in the world. And you are also able to attend large conferences (for free) where you get to learn about the latest trends from the world’s leading experts. Working side by side these experts means you often get a chance to chat one-on-one with them behind the scene.

And when it is your turn to work (for one hour or less), you get to stand on a stage in front of hundreds or thousands of people who give you warm and intense appreciation when you are done.

Yes, being a professional keynote speaker is a dream job if ever there was one.

By starting this blog, I hope to inspire others to join this amazing line of work by sharing some “behind-the-scenes” stories of what it is actually like to travel the world and speak.

I will write these posts while on the road to give an instant and authentic portrayal of what this job entails.

There are a lot of resources online on how to become a better speaker. There are also many professional speakers who will teach you how to develop the business side of speaking, usually for a fee. But there are not so many places online where you can learn how to become a better professional speaker – for FREE!

I have started this blog to share my approach to being a global professional speaker.

At the core of this approach is my belief that to run a successful, global, speaking business, you should focus much more on the “speaking” side of your business than the “business” side of things.

Personally, I spend much more time thinking about how to develop myself as a speaker than thinking about how to develop my speaking business. This strategy has made me one of the most successful global speakers of today.

By starting this blog, I hope to have a venue to share my thoughts about what makes speakers – and speeches – great.

I will try to have a good mix of content where I will both share my own experiences of speaking as well as share what I have learnt from other speakers or other speeches.

One of the best ways to learn something is to “tag along” and be a “fly on the wall” and try to absorb as much as you can by observing an expert. In this blog, I will share stories, insights and lessons that I have gained “on the road”.

I hope you will learn from these “real life” examples and that you’ll find them useful.

I look forward to helping you become a better speaker by sharing my journey of always trying develop myself to be the very best speaker I can be.

Fredrik Haren.

P.S. If you have any specific questions that you would like me to cover, please do not hesitate to send me an email at fredrik.haren@interesting.org.

Bad Day At Work – Or Why I Am Not A Pilot

Whoever tells you being a global speaker just means a lot of time on airplanes is missing the point.

ABOUT THIS SITE

ProfessionalSpeaking.com is run by Fredrik Haren, a Keynote Speaker whose specialty is to speak at Global and International Conferences around the world.

Through this site, he wants to inspire others to learn more about the job of being a professional speaker by sharing his thoughts on what it means to work as a global, professional speaker.

Fredrik has been speaking professionally for more than 20 years. He has been invited to speak in over 60 countries on 5 continents, and just in the last 12 months, he spoke in 32 different countries. He is a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), as well as one of less than 40 CSP Global in the world. He was awarded "Speaker of the Year" in Sweden and selected as one of the "Top 10 Swedish Speakers Ever". He now lives in Singapore.

As an author for over 20 years, Fredrik has written 9 books which have been translated to more than 15 languages and sold in over 60 countries. His book, The Idea Book, was included in "The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.”

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